


Crisis Meeting

by maximum_overboner



Category: Villainous (Cartoon)
Genre: Extremely Dark Comedy, Gen, I cannot stress what a truly atrocious creature I have made Black Hat, M/M, Poor Flug doesn't deserve any of this, The goal here is to make you chuckle and then immediately feel terrible for doing so, Violent japes, deeply unhealthy dynamic, it's like a sitcom where the main character murders the studio audience, then laughs uproariously for twenty five minutes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 01:11:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11325552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximum_overboner/pseuds/maximum_overboner
Summary: How can an extradimensional superhorror run out of money, exactly?





	Crisis Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> the opportunity for japes is simply too great for me to resist. forgive me!
> 
> can be considered a spin off to this; http://archiveofourown.org/works/11098350
> 
> but you don't have to read it to understand what's going on, there's just a few offhand references

Flug forced himself to stop sleeping naked. As much as he enjoyed the comfort he didn’t like the risks it presented. Namely, Black Hat throwing himself through his door in the wee hours of the morning, near frantic, the shock forcing Flug from his bed and onto the floor, the blanket wrapped around him like a shroud of indignity. He blearily tried to separate himself from the duvet and hide his shame, failing on both counts. All he could do was flop uselessly. Like the sausage he was.

“Flug! Flug, we’re having a crisis meeting!” 

Flug finally covered the important part; his face.

“I-- Wh-- What’s--” 

“It’s a meeting about a crisis, Flug--” 

He could feel Black Hat grimace, it was like a change in air pressure. He couldn’t see.

“-- You put that away and come down to the kitchen immediately.” 

Flug, still in the grip of sleep, unsure of what time it was, where he was or, who, in fact, he was, attempted to stand and shamble as instructed. Black Hat sputtered indignantly. 

“Clothed, Flug, clothed!” 

He slammed the door shut. Flug lay there, reality seeping in like a sock in a puddle. He groaned and slapped his face, before throwing on a pair of pyjama pants, as well as his bag, and setting off. He flipped a light on in the kitchen and it was torturously bright, Flug had to squeeze his eyes shut to take it in a bit at a time. Black Hat was sat at the table, as exhausted as he was, blearily rubbing his good eye. Flug sat opposite him.

“You’re so pasty,” Black Hat said, out of it.

“... What?” 

Black Hat blinked, regaining his composure.

“-- The meeting. Good. Of course. I’m glad you put on clothes, looking at you naked makes me more depressed.” 

Flug couldn’t find the energy to be offended. He blinked, his eyes out of sync with one another. Black Hat came out with it.

“We need to think of a way to make money.”

“At three in the morning, sir?”

“Yes, at three in the morning! Will I tell the crisis to wait? This is when the most nefarious planning gets done. You don’t orchestrate evil while sunning yourself on the beach with a fruity cocktail and a tan, you do it at night, where everyone is either drunk, asleep or miserable.” 

“I’m miserable.”

“Good, you’re in the spirit. We’re going to need that kind of initiative. The company is in…” 

Black Hat steepled his fingers, taking a deep breath in. 

“It’s dire, Flug. It’s dire. It’s why I’ve called you here. Would you like a coffee?”

“Yes please.” 

“So would I; make me one.” 

Flug sighed, lumbering over to the kettle and flipping it on. He looked back to Black Hat, wearing an oversized Victorian night-gown and a night cap. He yawned, his jaw popping unpleasantly, then held his head in his hands. Flug coughed politely to stop him from dozing off and he juddered upright, blinking. He made their drinks, some of it slopping over the top and burning his wrist, then sat down again. Black Hat downed his, then ate the cup.

“We need ideas and we need them now. Otherwise this venture goes down like you on Saturdays.” 

Oh, why did he have to bring that up  _ now.  _ Flug pinched his nose over the bag.

“I thought you said we had unlimited funding.” 

“We did!” 

“How-- Then how did we spend it?” 

“On your failed experiments! The money was unlimited in the sense that we earned it back to spend again!”

Flug had been nursing a mental breakdown for the past few weeks and it was ready to fly the nest. With a quivering hand, he sipped his coffee. 

“Sir… That’s… That’s not how--” 

“I know that now,” he barked, “but let’s not dwell on your mistakes; we’re in trouble. Think of ideas.”

Flug sat there, Black Hat scrutinizing him. 

“You could… Sell a suit?”   
  
“I’d sooner pull your teeth and sell those.” 

“It-- It was just a suggestion.” 

“... Say, that’s not a bad idea. How many kidneys do you have?” 

“T-Two. I need them, sir.” 

“Don’t be greedy. One kidney.”

“I can’t let you, sir. I-- I really like having all of my organs. I don’t have many good qualities, but that’s one of them.” 

“True. I can’t ask Dementia. She traded hers for two bottles of vodka and a chicken sandwich. Ugh. I haven’t been looking forward to this, but… Go get the receipts, Flug. We’re going to have to do some combing.” 

“Right away.”

He set off, digging the cardboard box out of the attic and bringing down, thudding it on the kitchen table. Inside were sheets of paper, haphazardly thrown in. Everyone in the house was allowed to use Black Hat’s money, provided it was all documented and the expenditures weren’t… Stupid. Like model planes. 

Flug sulked.

Black Hat put on his reading glasses, picked a receipt at random and scanned it. It appeared to be from a supermarket, probably from one of Flug’s grocery runs. Black Hat nodded.

“Nothing unreasonable here.” 

He narrowed his eyes, reading it again.

“... No, Flug, what’s this.” 

“What?” 

“This, here. A litre of strawberry ice cream.” 

“I get it for myself. Once a month.” 

“We aren’t made of money! Good God man, calm down, you aren’t an entrepreneur!” 

“Please don’t make me give up the tub of ice cream. Not when you--”

Flug looked at a reciept. 

“-- Order hundreds of piranha per month. Sir, where are these going?”

“They’re for the moat.” 

“We… The mansion doesn’t have a moat.” 

“I know,” Black Hat grumbled. “I was going to have one built before the money problems started. The piranhas are part of a subscription service, and I can’t get a refund. I lean out of the window and throw the dead fish at cars when I get bored.”

“How long does the service last?”

“Seventeen years. But that’s in the past. And the future. The ice cream stops.”

Flug, as petty as the loss may have seemed, sniffled. His only vice, gone.

“What are you doing.” 

It seemed to be one indignity after another, here. He hated this place. Despised it. Wasn’t allowed even the slightest luxury. It was hell from morning until night. It wasn’t about the ice cream, not really. He was one scoop away from breaking.

“Are you… Are you crying. Over ice cream.” 

“Yes.” 

“Stop that.” 

Flug didn’t. He pressed his hands to his bag, receipts and all, and squeezed. He was possibly the greatest scientific mind the world had ever known and this was what he had been reduced to. Bickering at three in the morning, half naked, with a petulant horror. Black Hat looked lost.

“Fine, keep the bloody ice cream! I don’t care! Get as much as you want, just-- stop blubbering, it’s embarrassing.” 

“... Really?”

“Yes, really-- just-- you aren’t productive when you ‘get upset’ or ‘have a breakdown’. This is for me, not for you.” 

Flug couldn’t help but suspect that wasn’t the case, but he kept his mouth shut. Black Hat clicked his fingers.

“Build me a machine that makes me more money.” 

“I-I can do that. But not right now.” 

“Why not.”   
  
“I don’t have the money.” 

“It’s always excuses with you. Damn. We’re proles. I never thought it would come to this.”

“I didn’t think my life would come to this either,” Flug said. 

Suddenly a wave of inspiration overtook Black Hat, like a massive stroke.

“We could try making batteries out of orphans! And sell those!”

Flug sat there. 

_ “Pardon?”  _

“You know. The little sticks you put in the television remote. You should know what a battery is.” 

Flug, as horrified as he was at even the mere suggestion, knew he couldn’t bring morality into it, because Black Hat only just registered morality as a concept and that was for the sole purpose of spitting on it. He had to be as calm and logical as possible. Herding children into pens and electrifying the living daylights out of them was terrible, yes, an unpleasant way to spend a Tuesday night, true; but it also wasn’t pragmatic.

“Sir… The amount of energy needed to keep them fed and alive would greatly--” 

“We’re not feeding them; this is a cost cutting operation.” 

Oh good God.

“Where,” Flug said, restraining himself, “would we find the astronomical amount needed to power a single room in this house for fifteen seconds.” 

Black Hat thought. 

“I have a knife. It’s not as if they’re difficult to make. Give me a few days and I’ll fetch you a tote seething with orphans.” 

“Why orphans?” 

“Their parents can’t complain and the despair makes them too stringy to eat. Might as well get some use out of them. It’s that or I get another fighting ring going, but that was a complex web of deception, backstabbing and tiny punches to the stomach. I don’t want to go back to that.”

Flug was about to hyperventilate. 

“We need-- a plan, we need to draw up a plan.”

“I’m going to fist God and supercede the devil.” 

“-- A short term plan, that will help us get our bearings. How much money do you have left?”

“I had savings, but Dementia figured out my password and spent eight grand on nail polish. So none. No money.” 

“No money.” 

“The amount of money I have is zero and it is too little. It’s time to move from televised organized crime to secretive organized crime.”   

Black Hat narrowed his eyes, smiling, and Flug knew that when he looked like that terrible things happened to those around him.

“I do have my methods. I think I’ve fixed our problem.” 

“O-Oh?” 

“I’m a businessman, Flug. I know full well when subtlety is required. Tact, grace, adroitness and aplomb are just as valuable as strength and menace. And I’m just _slithering_ with menace.” 

“You have a plan?” 

“I do. But it will require all the cunning we have. Trust me, Flug. No fanfare, no unwanted attention, no fuss. We set off in the morning.” 

“It is the morning.” 

“Early afternoon.” 

Flug wondered what this plan could be. Embezzlement? Scamming a casino? He could admit he was curious, underneath Black Hat’s arrogant exterior was the cold, dark soul of a racketeer. And underneath that was probably something he couldn’t comprehend.

 

* * *

 

They had set off from the house in the evening, both of them still reeling from their ruined sleep schedule, and on the way to their apparent destination Black Hat had spied a man on his own and so leapt upon him, battering his face against the concrete in the alleyway whilst Flug screamed at him to stop.

_ “Give me your wallet!”  _

“Sir, please, he’s already unconscious; stop hitting him!”  

He didn’t. Flug spied a shiny leather rectangle in the man’s hand, an offering before he fell unconscious.   


“It’s too late, Flug! I’ve already started! Check his wallet!”

Flug did. Inside was some change, a bank card, and several pictures of the family he appeared to love very much. 

“You said we were going to be subtle!” 

“It is subtle you fool,” he declared, pulping this stranger’s skull with a maddened look in his eyes and a thrilled rasp to his voice, “we’re in an alley!” 

“You’re killing him, please!” 

_ “I’ve never been more erect!”  _

“Please stop, sir,” Flug wailed. In a last ditch attempt to save this poor bastard from Black Hat’s growing bloodlust, he flashed the picture of the happy family. Black Hat slowed, then stopped, blinking at it. Flug prayed that the sentimentality took. 

“What a beautiful family,” Black Hat said. Flug was shaking, but he breathed a sigh of relief. Black Hat lit up. 

“Look at the clothes they’re wearing; they do well for themselves.” 

Black Hat grabbed his victim by the collar and shook his limp body.

“Oi! Bleedy!  _ Where do you live!”  _

Flug was incoherent. He never found out what the original plan was.


End file.
